Trapped in the TARDIS
by James DM
Summary: The Doctor and River find themselves trapped in the TARDIS, separated from Amy and Rory. When they can't leave the control room or operate any of the main controls, how will they reunite with the rest of the team in time?
1. Chapter 1

**Trapped in the TARDIS**

**Chapter 1**

**By James M**

The Doctor flicked and twiddled the knobs and dials on the TARDIS control panel, every once in a while laying his hands down flat on the console just to feel her soft, subtle vibration resonate through his body. It was rare that he really stopped and slowed down enough to feel a sensation like this, the reassurance that so long as he was here together with her, everything would be okay, because no matter how bleak things got, she'd make it okay. Just the mad man and his box for nine hundred years, and with any luck, for at least another nine hundred years more.

Or at least, that's how it would have been were it just him in the control room. On the direct opposite side of the console, blocked from the Doctor's line of sight by the time rotor towering towards the ceiling, stood a stunningly gorgeous River Song. She was the youngest the Doctor had ever seen her, appearing as if she were in her mid-thirties at this point. Her golden-blonde curls descended well below her shoulders, and her pale grey eyes were full of life and energy. Any wrinkles or signs of middle age that had been present in their last encounters were gone.

She was still dressed in her getup from their recently concluded adventure in the Italian Renaissance. She played the part of a courtesan quite convincingly, to the point where even the Doctor found himself heavily distracted from his work by her…allure. The Doctor was too aware, however, that River was far more brains than she was beauty. She proved this when she uncovered the death of Pope Alexander VI to be an assassination by renegade Centrillions from the Phalanxion galaxy. He was so proud, she'd figured it all out herself…their secret coup, their hideout, their plans to place one of their own as the new Pope and use the Coliseum as a transport dock for the rest of their renegade squad to arrive and mount an invasion.

_I'll be training her very well one day,_ the Doctor mused. He chuckled self-indulgently.

"What are you thinking about?" he heard her voice from the other side of the console.

Despite whatever fondness he had for her, the Doctor would never admit to being outdone by anyone, nor would he admit that he actually liked it. Thus, he lied.

"Your defiance," he responded coyly.

"And how's that?" River peeked out from behind the time rotor and smiled sweetly. _Oh, this woman_, the Doctor thought, _how she loves it when I talk about how bad she is._

"I sent everyone to bed while I'm out here working, which means Amy and Rory."

"Yes."

"And you."

"Mm, yes."

"So, you should be in bed, getting some sleep." The Doctor flipped a switch on what he called the "lighty-wighty board", which shut off the light shining down on River, covering her in darkness.

"Still not seeing your point, sweetie." River stepped out of the darkness and sat on the console next to the lighty-wighty board, smiling at him.

"Careful, you might shut off all the lights," the Doctor said, nudging her aside.

"Oh, what a tragedy that would be," River sighs.

"You just found out the secret to a historical assassination," the Doctor said softly to the point of a near whisper, "a bit of shut-eye couldn't hurt, hm?"

"Oh but that would be a tragedy," River said at the same low volume, inching closer to him every second. "Every now and again you drop out of the sky, sonic the lock of my maximum-security prison cell, whisk me away in your magic box, and take me far away onto magical, indescribable adventures where, more often than not, I, or you, nearly die."

"That sums it up rather well," the Doctor agreed, although he knew that he had never sprung her from jail before, and she was speaking from her own past experience.

"You temporarily save me from a life of loneliness, and give me times I'll never forget…and then you put me right back." As she said this, a twinge of pain was audible in her voice, which was not lost on the Doctor.

"You said you had a promise to keep," the Doctor recalled. "Well, you will say that. Well—"

River puts her finger on his lips, silencing him. "Shh…spoilers." That familiar line. River's signature line, the line that always reminds him of the agonizing truth that their timelines are out of synchronicity. Every time beforehand that she had said it to him, the restriction it placed on knowledge relevant to himself would frustrate him to no end. But this time, the familiarity of that one word, "spoilers", soothed him.

"If you're going to leave me soon," River whispered, "at least don't make me sleep alone."

Before the Doctor could move his lips to speak, she was restricting them with her own. Their mouths were locked together in a slow, passionate kiss. They had only kissed once before, at least from the Doctor's perspective, and that time was awkward and new, but nonetheless enjoyable. This time the Doctor knew that kissing was part of their dynamic, and he was better prepared mentally. He was good at mental preparation.

The inhibited little Doctor, the one who didn't talk to girls in his youth in favor of building new kinds of screwdrivers, didn't feel little in this moment. He felt alive. His hearts beat at the rate of two hummingbirds' wings side-by-side, his face becoming hot and his body hairs sticking up on end. His right hand found its way to her left, and like perfect pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, his and River's fingers interlocked. His other hand ventured to the small of her back, that adorable little dip in her spine between her hips that, from now on, he'd make sure to hold whenever he possibly could. This was no longer the boy who ran away in the TARDIS all on his own, thinking about every little situation and solving every mystery of the universe in his head and constantly on the move, on the run from a life of Time Lord aristocracy that he swore would never catch him. In this moment he was just a physical being, a creature of pleasure indulging in his overwhelming carnal desires, letting lust and passion take control as he and the beautiful woman in his arms became one. For once, he didn't have to think. And he didn't miss it at all.

At that moment, the loud, buzzing sound of an alarm burst from the console, throwing the Doctor and River out of their lascivious embrace.

"Oh, you!" the Doctor shouted, pointing at the TARDIS ceiling, striding around angrily and glaring at it. "You never let me have any fun, you know that?"

"Doctor," River beckoned while looking at the scanner.

"Not now, River, the princess is in one of her moods," the Doctor yelled, kicking the guardrail at the edge of the platform. He then knelt down, kissed the spot he kicked, and rubbed it while muttering apologies.

"Doctor, come look at this," River persisted.

"I'm sorry…" the Doctor whispered to the guardrail, "what's wrong? Tell me what's the matter, dear."

"Doctor!" River shouted.

"_What!_" He snapped back, and darted over to the scanner to look at what she wanted to show him. "Oh…that's…"

"What is it?" River asked?

"Bad," The Doctor answered concisely.

The scanner read in large, flashing red words: "EMERGENCY PROTECTION FAILSAFE", coupled with a countdown timer set for ten seconds.

"Ten seconds," the Doctor whispered, "Ten seconds until very bad things happen." He dug his fingers into the keyboard, typing away every override code he could think of, but none of them had any effect – the countdown continued, now at six. As he always did when he was out of options, he pulled out the sonic and pointed it at the keyboard, hoping for the best. The green light of his screwdriver illuminated the entire console, and the keys started tapping away on their own, typing in override codes even he didn't know, faster than he could have inputted them manually. None of them worked – the countdown was now at two.

"No! Amy! Rory!" The Doctor sprinted up the back stairs. When he reached the top, a huge metal door covered the corridor leading out of the control room.

"Doctor, be careful!" River cried.

Unable to process Amy's warning in time, the Doctor ran into the door headfirst, and his body started to convulse and glow as he was shocked by volts of what appeared to be blue electricity. He staggered back and fell down the stairs, being caught by River before he reached the bottom. His eyes were closed.

"Doctor," River urged, "Doctor are you all right? Doctor, please!"

At this, his eyes split open and he hopped up to his feet, at which point he cried in agony and collapsed back to his knees. "Condensed artron energy. The amount of background radiation that you'd absorb from a hundred thousand journeys through space squeezed together and used as a weapon, burning through your entire body."

"How can anyone survive that?" River asked, kneeling next to him with her hand on his shoulder.

"_You_ can't," he replied, "I can because a hundred thousand journeys is like a summer road trip for me, a touch from that door is like a cattle prod." The Doctor turned to look River in the eye. "River, whatever you do, don't go near that door."

River returned his gaze, and nodded in obedience. The Doctor pulled himself to his feet with River's assistance, and she carried him to the TARDIS front doors.

"The door was electrified on this side, which means that the protocol was probably meant to keep the inhabitants of this room trapped, unless they want to be fried, which seems like a merciful option, as far as TARDIS deaths go," the Doctor rambled, "there's always getting squeezed to death by malfunctioning pressurizers. Lost one of my pets that way."

He drew his sonic screwdriver from his top pocket and used it on the handle of the front doors, which then sparked with blue electricity as well – more artron energy.

"Ah, now we know what we're dealing with. Every exit to this room is guarded by condensed artron energy. If we try to escape we'll be burnt to a crisp."

"Wouldn't you know what happens during an emergency protection failsafe? It's your TARDIS." River pointed out.

"Yeah, well, that part was probably in the manual. And that manual's in a supernova. So that's all cleared up now, is it? Good, good. More important. Amy and Rory are kept from us by a layer of steel and deadly energy," the Doctor reviewed.

"To what, keep them from helping us?"

"Oh, yes, definitely, the leggy ginger and the wonder-nose are the only hope for the nine-hundred-and-nine-year-old Time Lord and the Stormcage prisoner who keeps an Alpha Meson pistol strapped to her thigh? No, that'd be stupid. If something is on board this ship, which is very unlikely, and is threatening anyone, which in that case would be likely, they'd be threatening the two humans asleep in their bed, and keeping us in here so we can't do a thing about it."

"So what do we do?"

At this, the Doctor stopped. He wracked his brain for all the different ways he could try to reverse the situation, but he couldn't override the TARDIS's emergency protection failsafe even with the sonic, which means he was probably deadlocked out of the controls. If he even tried to get out of the main control room, condensed artron energy would pour into his veins, setting his body ablaze with pain, and that's nothing compared to what it'd do to River if she tried. There was no way out.

"Doctor, what do we do?" River repeated.

He didn't answer. He didn't know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**By James DM**

The Doctor sat slouched in his chair, his brow furrowed and his fingers over his eyes. He was wracking his centuries-old genius brain for reasons, explanations, inferences, maybe even an optimistic delusion to explain what was happening to them. He possessed cosmic amounts of knowledge that the universe's most intellectual species would wage war to attain, and right now he was coming up with…nothing. He hadn't a clue what was happening, and that was what frustrated him the most. Often he'd been amused by the feeling of not knowing, the delight of curiosity, but not this time. There was too much at stake and the mystery of this predicament was rendering him impotent.

River Song sat curled up on the floor a solid ten feet from him, giving him clear distance. He moved his hand from his eyes to look at her. She had removed her uncomfortable 16th Century Roman dress and, due to lack of access to the TARDIS wardrobe, remained in her underwear (all of this in front of him, which he refused to let distract him). Her bowed head suggested that she was sleeping, but her wide-open eyes proved otherwise. Her arms were wrapped around her legs, and she sat leaning against the console. The Doctor marked this as unusually innocent behavior for River Song, but she was young, after all. He knew exactly what she was doing, too – she was keeping her distance for his sake.

"Thanks," he finally broke the silence. She was evidently startled by his sudden snap back into reality, from the way her head jerked up to face him.

"For what?" she asked.

"For keeping quiet while I'm thinking," he responded. "People often choose to wildly panic and scream instead of being quiet; sometimes people underestimate its value."

"You've made that clear on occasion," she smiled. However, he didn't smile back; instead he looked at her rather quizzically. Her smile faded such that her expression matched his. Then, he sprung up from his chair (startling River once again) and started walking towards her.

"Psychic," the Doctor said, managing to sound cryptic with a one-word sentence.

"What?" River said, rising to her feet.

"Time-Lords have psychic abilities. If I wanted to, I could find out every secret about you by simply reading your mind." The Doctor recalled Madame du Pompadour, to whom he had done similar things, although it went a bit awry that time around.

"You think I'd hang around a Time-Lord and not know how to close the doors in my mind? Give me some credit, sweetie," The corner of River's lip curled into a smirk. "But you can definitely try if you like."

"Why shouldn't I? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't." he was beginning to get impatient.

"Because you know that not all rules are made to be broken," River said. With that, the Doctor recalled his first memory of meeting River Song in the Library, when he tried to look in her diary of spoilers. She had stopped him, saying it was "against the rules". When he asked whose rules they were, she said, "Your rules." The Doctor's rules. In the future, someday far later in his timeline when he'd know who River Song really was, he'd try to protect that information from his past self until he had become ready. Of course, not being allowed to know information about himself infuriated him. Nevertheless, if there was anyone in the universe whose judgment the Doctor trusted, it was his own.

"Fine." The Doctor hissed. "I guess I'll have to wait and see. But I'm not the patient type, I'm sure you know that."

"Oh, of course," River said, with a certain flirtiness in her voice, "that's why I so enjoy making you wait. It gets you all hot and bothered." In another scenario, The Doctor would have responded with a corny attempt at flirting back, but now was not the time. There were more pressing issues at hand to deal with.

"Let's think, what's happening here, what's actually happening?" He changed the subject to a more comfortable one for him, although his tone was not devoid of urgency in the slightest.

"Well, we're locked in the TARDIS control room, with lethal amounts of condensed artron energy restricting every exit." River reviewed.

"Yes, but think harder," he urged. "An emergency failsafe that can potentially separate passengers can't be initiated by the TARDIS automatically, it has to be done manually. One of the few instructions I ever cared to read. Amy and Rory only have an extremely basic knowledge of how to operate the controls, and you and I were too, well…we were preoccupied, so who turned the emergency failsafe on?"

River and the Doctor's eyes met, sharing a grave, unspoken understanding. Someone else was aboard the TARDIS – and they had access to its controls.

"So what do we do?"

"We find it and we rip it to pieces, because honestly, I'm getting really tired of people abducting my TARDIS!" The Doctor shouted to the theoretical TARDIS hijacker on board. "She's mine, get your own!"

"Doctor, we're locked out of the TARDIS controls. We can't bring up the interior maps to see who's on board." River pointed out.

"Yes, I know, but there's got to be another way, there's always another way." The Doctor sighed. He felt as if he was bound with his hands behind his back. He couldn't do anything. His sonic was useless and so was his brain. A captain who can't control his own ship isn't much of a captain at all. "There's got to be something. Something left that we have access to…" and then the realization hit him. A plan – no not a plan, more like a risky idea with the potential for fiery death – was beginning to hatch.

"Oh," he whispered.

"What is it?" River responded with concern.

"No, that can't be it," there was a tinge of panic in the Doctor's voice; he sounded as if he was genuinely fearful of what he was thinking. "There's got to be a better way, that's far too dangerous."

"Doctor," River demanded, "What is it?"

The Doctor turned around slowly, the look in his eyes piercing River with the rare fear they showed. After much hesitation, he finally said, his voice trembling—

"I have to open the heart of the TARDIS."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

River's icy glare burned against the Doctor's skin. There was more than her usual frustration with him now – no, there was a marked fury written all across her face. The discomfort had turned the seconds of silence since he'd told her they'd need to open the heart of the TARDIS into what felt like agonizing hours. This was something he had to mark – the Doctor in the TARDIS who feared no man did fear a woman – this woman – and her disapproving glare.

_Oh, what fun married life will be, _he thought.

"You have definitely lost it." River growled.

"River," the Doctor started.

"You've tried to pull some tricks in your day," River continued, speaking over the Doctor's futile attempts at interrupting her, "but this? Are you mad? Are you absolutely daft?"

"Yes, I am, but that's nothing to do with this," The Doctor finally managed to get a word in, "if you'd just let me finish explaining—"

"You'll risk killing us all!" River shouted. The Doctor flinched.

"There's no need to shout," he said in an indoor voice.

"I will shout if I bloody well like, thank you. As for you, if you even think—"

River's sentence was interrupted by the Doctor's index finger placed upon her lip. Her eyes widened in that familiar way that they did whenever she criticized his behavior, but her silence showed that she was finally willing to listen.

"Right, good," the Doctor exhaled. "Now, the TARDIS controls are completely restricted. Beyond deadlocked. Same with the exits. Physically, nothing is getting in or out of this room. Note that word I just used – _physically_."

"So we're going to be getting out of here in a non-physical way?"

"You're not. I am."

The Doctor expected her to seem annoyed at her exclusion, but instead she appeared concerned, as if she (accurately) assumed that what he was about to describe would be wildly dangerous. After all, why else would he exclude his companion?

"Because what I'm about to do, were you in my position, you couldn't survive the process," he explained with hesitation. "Your body would burn to a cinder. Or you could revert to an infant state. Or you could become a demigod and then burn to death. All three are very interesting options. All three of which have happened before. None of which we need to explore again today." He recalled the Bad Wolf and Blon Slitheen.

"Doctor, I don't understand." River interjected.

"No, of course you don't." The Doctor sighed. He knew this plan would be risky. He knew that the odds of them both being incinerated immediately were staggeringly high. He was also aware that if he lost control, the chances of her burning slowly to a crisp and him burning at an even slower, more excruciating rate, were staggeringly higher. But his hands were tied. What else could he do? His sonic was useless, he couldn't pilot his own TARDIS. His only option was improvisation. He was good at improvising…sometimes.

"River, what I'm about to describe to you is going to sound very dangerous, very insane, a little bit careless but altogether genius, and you have to promise me that you won't say a word until I'm finished. Do you understand?"

River's expression showed that she did not understand, and she did not agree. Whatever plan this was, it would be foolish and risky. But she had to give in, because she did trust this man with everything. After all the times he'd saved her life – after the way he'd pretty much _been _her life – he at least deserved the benefit of the doubt now, in this scenario when her well-being wasn't the only one at stake.

"Okay," River nodded.

"Good. Now, the TARDIS exists all across time and space. Anywhere and everywhere and anything that has ever happened or ever could or would happen, the TARDIS knows about and has seen and has felt. The TARDIS is literally everywhere at once. She's truly omniscient." he said with a hint of pride in his voice.

"Yes, but that's useless to us now since we can't pilot her." River interjected.

"You promised you'd be quiet," The Doctor grumbled.

"I had my fingers crossed behind my back," River said, and the Doctor grew a little smirk. He did love her defiance. "Go on."

"Well, in any normal situation, she'd be useless to us, but not quite now. We may not be able to control it through the console, but maybe, just maybe…" the Doctor hesitated. This would not sit well with River. "Maybe I can control it with my mind." River's ears seemed to steam from her rage, but the Doctor continued before she could interrupt, walking away from her. "All I need is a small part, a tiny bit. Even the fewest particles of the Heart are enough to shut off the electricity across city blocks or briefly interrupt a planet's gravity. Both of which have happened before. Neither of which we need to explore today."

"And how do you intend to keep that from happening?" River asked with a marked skepticism.

"Because I'm going to harness it all within my body," the Doctor now turned to face River, "and then I'm going to need you."

"Me? What for?" she asked.

"You've no doubt had psychic training, River, am I correct?"

"Of course, I learned from the best."

"I'm going to assume that's me. Now, if I can harness the pure, raw power of time travel, the ability to go anywhere and see anything, and then I had a psychic mind to use as a subject, my own personal ball of wibbly-wobbly for me to move freely around, I can potentially explore recent events within the TARDIS and find out the identity of our little stowaway."

"You want to time-travel through my brain and watch my memories?" River tried to simplify his cryptic language.

"Yes," the Doctor confirmed. "Well, no. Not watch. If I'm right, and I usually am, I'll get to live your memories. Experience them myself and even control them." The Doctor had a small laugh at this concept. It was revolutionary, and all kinds of brilliant by his standards. River's face, however, remained stone-cold.

"I still don't understand," River said.

"Think of it this way. Time can be rewritten. And the Heart of the TARDIS has the power to change reality. So, if I'm in your brain, I can use that power to rewrite your memories, and maybe, if I've got enough power and I'm really, really lucky, the power of the TARDIS will make whatever changes to your memory hold true in history. The timeline will rewrite itself to suit your memories."

River seemed perplexed, but as she thought about it, appeared more acceptant of the idea. She nodded, but raised her hand to mark one final question.

"But—" She started, but the Doctor cut her off.

"What if it doesn't work? What if I can't perform psychic time-travel? What if I burn up and you do too and the TARDIS remains permanently locked down?" The Doctor asked for her. "Well, that's simple. One, you won't be harmed, the heart of the TARDIS isn't going anywhere near you, it's staying entirely within me. Second, I don't need that much energy. The entire TARDIS Heart would take about five minutes to do away with me entirely, but the small part I'm grabbing will take, I don't know, an hour, ninety minutes at the most?"

"Oh, that's comforting." River said sarcastically.

"But think about how cool this is! If this works, I will have successfully invented psychic time-travel!" the Doctor said with a grin. "I could get a book written about me! Well, one that I actually _wanted _written."

"Doctor," River asked gravely, "Are you sure this will work?"

"Not at all," the Doctor answered truthfully. "But it's the only option we've got. We have to try."

River gave no answer. She just looked into his eyes. The Doctor's expression was determined, fierce. He was eager to try this. If he wasn't certain that psychic time-travel would work, he was certain that if everything went according to plan he would absolutely destroy whatever was interfering with his TARDIS. River could read this in his face, and that was enough for her. She sighed, and nodded.

"Perfect! Now let's get cracking," The Doctor yelled, and then scampered away while talking, going under the TARDIS platform to the machinery housed underneath. River followed. "Now, all I need is to use my screwdriver to open up the Heart very briefly, and we should be good." He finally stopped in front of the green glowing column reaching from the low ceiling to a large orb on the floor, complete with soft pipes going through it. "The Heart of the TARDIS is in there. Think of it like the chest cavity, except without lungs or blood vessels or…chest thingies," the Doctor pointed briefly at River's breasts.

River rolled her eyes. "Well put."

"Now, my sonic doesn't work to override any of the technology in this room, but I bet it can still force things open." The Doctor knelt down in front of the orb, the green light of the column reflecting off his face. He pulled his sonic out from his top pocket, and pointed it at one of the pipes. Whirring loudly as ever, the sonic shone on the pipe for a full ten seconds, but nothing happened. The pipe didn't detach itself from the orb. The Doctor kept trying repeatedly, changing the settings on the sonic every time, but to no avail.

"Here, sweetie," River said as she knelt down next to him. He turned to her, and watched her pull a tiny black box, almost like a laser pointer, out of her bra. Smiling as if she could tell he was both fascinated, aroused, and a tiny bit uncomfortable, she pressed a large button on its side and it expanded to become a Phillips screwdriver. She handed it to the Doctor, who put away his sonic and examined this new screwdriver with intense scrutiny.

"What else do you keep in there?" he asked with wonder.

"Oh you know, cosmetics, weapons, magazines," she responded. "They're bigger on the inside."

"Oh…you just love to distract me, don't you!" the Doctor said with an air of playfulness in his voice, and started to remove each screw holding the pipe in place. Finally, he'd removed them all. He held the pipe in place so that no particles would escape before he wanted them to.

"River, you're going to want to stand back a bit," he warned. River did as she was told and stepped back a few feet. The Doctor hesitated, and said "Geronimo."

He raised the pipe up to his mouth, and started taking a deep breath, inhaling the Heart of the TARDIS. His skin immediately started to glow bright gold. His eyes shone with the brilliance of a thousand suns. His hair started waving and blowing as if he was being buffeted by wind. He inhaled deeply from the pipe with his mouth, and then exhaled through his nose, with some stray particles of the TARDIS Heart escaping from his nostrils and then dissipating into the air. He repeated again. And again. Finally, after the third or fourth time, River interfered.

"Doctor, that's enough!" she cried, and grabbed the pipe from his hands. She placed it back on the sphere and started to replace the screws.

"River…" the doctor coughed. His voice sounded unearthly – it echoed as if they were in a deep cave, but at the same time sounded like music, as if there were two voices speaking simultaneously in melodic harmony. "River, come here."

"Doctor, are you all right?" she asked, running to him. He was glowing all over. She couldn't tell if the glowing was caused by his body harboring the TARDIS, or if he was starting to regenerate.

"I'm fine, it's perfectly fine," he said. "I just feel a slight stinging sensation here," he pointed to his left heart, "and here," he pointed to his right. "But in here," he pointed to his brain, "it's all explody-wody, quite frankly, it's absolutely brilliant! I should do this more often! No, no, that's a very bad idea. I should never do this again. No, River…" his voice was starting to deteriorate into a croak. "River, I need you to let down your mental defenses. Can you do that?"

"Doctor…"

"Please, River. We don't have much time."

River sighed, and then nodded. She closed her eyes. The Doctor placed his fingers on her temples, and then closed his eyes. At first, he felt nothing change. But suddenly, he felt a huge surge of heat travel quickly from his brain down through his neck, into his shoulders, up through his arms, and down into his fingertips. Then he couldn't see, hear, or feel anything at all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The Doctor shivered, the absence of heat in this pitch-black realm feeling like ice-cold to him. He wrapped his arms around him for warmth, and in doing so came to the realization that he was not wearing a shirt. Pants, yes (tight pants, as it were), but no shirt. Perplexed, he raised his hands to his hair and felt it was longer and shaggier than usual, which was peculiar since he'd gotten a haircut recently on Barbershop Quadrant 9. _Oh, of course, _he thought,_ I'm in her mind, a realm entirely under her conscious and subconscious control, so a physical representation of me would be an idealized version…oh Doctor, do you get her hot._

The Doctor had a laugh at this, but then stopped short. He groped his face to inspect his mouth and jaw, which were present in his current form, but clamped shut. He couldn't move them. His laughter, his speech, any noise he'd normally make orally, he heard as thoughts. He tried screaming – same result. He tried yelling strange Gallifreyan noises and slurs and swears, and none of it came out of his mouth, it simply remained in his head. _The explanation for that is simple – psychic training. Her mental defenses are fortified such that her thoughts are the only ones heard aloud. No room for noisy little interferences. That's a neat trick. _Gallifreyan_ trick…one of my favorites. Good to see I'll be passing it on. Oh, Doctor Song…you're so full of spoilers and you don't even know it._

_Now, here I am in a big dark scary endless room. A big room with no walls. Everything expansive and endless and big, big, big. She's got psychic training and she's lowered her defenses, and no matter how good she may be, I'm better, so I should be able to walk around. _Unlike his mouth, the Doctor was able to move his legs with ease. Any motor function or control of his extremities worked without a hitch. As he walked, however, he made no noise of footsteps. Nor did a snap of his fingers, clap of his hands, or any other sound he could make with his body. _Not a single sound can interfere with her thought process. But why aren't I hearing any thoughts? Is she trained that well? To keep interlopers in silence? Now this is a bit annoying. I asked her to let down her defenses, and the only thing she's done is let me walk around half-naked in near-blindness. Next thing you know I'll be handcuffed. _

The Doctor continued walking, his hands held out in front of him to feel for random invisible walls he might bump into. He gingerly crept forward for a long while, with each passing minute getting anxious. _This is not good, _he thought. _If time in River's brain passes in synchronicity with time in the TARDIS, then that means the minutes I've wasted trying to navigate this limbo is time that the TARDIS energy coursing through my body is burning me alive. No, thick Doctor, what are you thinking? Thoughts, scientifically speaking, are thousands of electrical impulses dispatched by neurons that are then interpreted by the brain. Countless impulses per second. If I'm moving at the speed of River's thoughts, then I've got time. Not much time, since TARDIS energy can burn you up in ten seconds flat. Or ten minutes. Depends on her mood. Hope she's not cross. She is sexy when she's cross, though. Stop! Stop getting distracted. You need to move._

With that, the Doctor continued walking, this time picking up the pace until he was in a full run. Eventually he came to a full, panting stop when he saw a tiny book on the floor. He knelt down to pick it up, and examined its blue cover with a drawing of the TARDIS doors on the front. _River's diary…the book of spoilers. The index to every single memory she's ever had. Her past, my future…this isn't good. One peek in here and I could learn everything and anything there is to know about River Song. Everything she doesn't want me to know, not yet. But River's good, she's clever, she's a clever girl. And I'm clever too. If I taught her well enough…_

Nervously, the Doctor slowly opened the book, his eyes shut tight. As he settled on the first page, he peeled his right eye, peering through it. _If I see any text…any text at all…I'll close it. Then I'll have to think of something else, but what? I don't have anything else_. _No TARDIS, no sonic, no room for improvisation. No, this has to work, right here, right now. Geronimo._

Cautiously, the Doctor peeled open his right eye to the first page – completely blank. He heard in his brain a heavy sigh of relief. He opened his eyes completely, and flipped through page after page. All blank. Finally he settled on one full page about ¾ of the way through the book. _Ah, brilliant clever girl! She isolated the memories of the past few hours in the TARDIS in the book, and kept any spoilers locked away. Now, if I'm right, I just need to…_

The Doctor raised his left index finger, and concentrated on it intensely. His body became warm, and that warmth started to pour into that finger, pumping until it was all concentrated in his fingertip. His fingertip started glowing and steaming with golden energy – TARDIS energy. He scanned the page for the right sentence. _No, not that one, that's much too early, I'll be banging around in the past forever. No, no, that one's too late. Honestly, River, good effort, but a little more specificity would have been helpful. Ah! There it is. _He found the sentence he needed – "I decided that in an hour or so I'd go meet with the Doctor in the control room." – and he pressed his glimmering finger against it, tracing over it like a highlighter. All at once both he and the book started to glow, his body starting to shake and convulse violently. An eruption of light exploded from the line of text he pointed to, engulfing him until his vision was completely consumed by blinding white light. He screamed in his brain again, and then was silent.


End file.
